My latest post for Alpha Baskets reflects on turning 50. Down below is an excerpt but I also wanted to added a couple of other thoughts. This theme wouldn’t be complete without quoting our friend Bill from here in Walker who said you can figure it out now or you can figure it out later but if you can figure it out now you’ll be much happier. This is a comment about figuring yourself out and what is really important to you. Hopefully you don’t spend too much time chasing things that actually are not important to you. Pursing the things you really care about makes for a happier life. People tend to connect success to how much money they make. I would say that if you make enough to pay the bills, save a little and have some leftover without swimming in debt, regardless of how much you make, then you’re doing better than most. We went out with my brother and his wife on my 50th and he teased me a couple of times for how unphased I was about turning 50. If you’re lucky enough to be happy at home and to enjoy your work then you have a much better chance of having an easy time with the big milestones. From the post; We do however save like we are way behind for a big philosophical reason that may be familiar to some readers. You never know what the future you might want to do or may have to do. A lot of people face meaningful but unexpected change for reasons that can be good...

The weekly Market Update is posted at Alpha Baskets and includes the following; The first quarter was in part dominated by central bank headlines that might leave investors wondering if policy is being made up on the spot. The Bank of Japan embarked on a NIRP policy which had the immediate opposite of what was intended effect as the yen rallied sharply. The ECB is buying more debt than it originally intended and moved policy further into negative territory without much success where success is measured by favorable economic data. And at home FOMC members and other Fed Governors seem to be stumbling over each other to give contradictory speeches to anyone who will listen, we’ll spare an attempt at an April Fools joke about Neel Kashkari having a speaking engagement with Wayzata, MN PTA. Please click through to read the entire update. The first picture is another Trophy Truck from the Mint 400 in Las Vegas about a month ago. The second picture a Forest Service utility vehicle filtered with a back lighting effect....

My latest post for Alpha Baskets looks the recent spate of very narrowly focused ETFs and when with such a narrow theme, it might be better to pick an individual stock instead. There have been some funds launched lately which seem incredibly narrow, along the lines of the health related funds from many years ago which included an endocrinology ETFs, an ophthalmology ETF and quite a few others before they were shuttered. Personally, I love the innovation and enjoy learning about this sort of thing even if I am very unlikely to ever have interest in the Tungsten Miners ETF (TUNG)—April Fools, there is no TUNG ETF, not yet anyway. Please click through to read the entire post. The wildland fire season will be here in Arizona soon which means a lot of inter-agency activity including training and planning which I get to have a small role in organizing every year. The second picture is the dashboard of a 50’s era Chevy Bel Air (the right side of the dash says Bel Air but the steering wheel has an Impala logo)....